The Fat Cat [feeding on Rhema Church]

8 Mar 18

There are some fat cats in the charity sector.

None of them are as lovely as this boy - who reminds me of my own Barnes.

The ones which have come to our attention, however, are not the people usually thought of as charity fat cats, ie CEOs.

The fat cats of charity we are talking about are the Interim Managers placed by the Charity Commission in charities which are under statutory inquiry.

What a nice little earner this is, if you get appointed - and plenty are!

Usually, an Interim Manager takes over decision making from the Trustees.

Curiously, however, responsibility and liability remain with the Trustees.

If that wasn’t worrying enough…

Usually, an Interim Manager [IM] becomes the sole person who has access to and control over the charity’s assets including the bank account.

Now it’s beginning to look decidedly worrying…

An Interim Manager also has permission to pay themselves.

So now, the fox is looking after the chickens.

And guess what, these foxes don’t miss the opportunity!

On top of that…

In all the cases we have looked at, the initial estimate of the time the IM will be in office and their related cost is distinctly on the low side - to avoid scaring the chickens too early on, we assume!

EXAMPLE - Rhema Church in Croydon.

The Interim Manager was expected to be in place for a matter of months and cost the charity about £24,000.

TWO YEARS and £150,000 later, the Interim Manager KEITH MILLS of TROWERS and HAMLINS is still in place - and beginning to liquidate the charity’s assets to fund his future fees.

Despite this [or perhaps because of it] - oddly enough - there are NO PUBLISHED ACCOUNTS on the charity’s entry on the Charity Commission’s website since 2014!

Has Mr Mills been too busy changing the locks, firing the staff and now getting the charity’s property on the market to sell to comply with the Charity Commission’s requirements to file documents on time? But then, he is not liable for late filing - that’s down to the trustees.

Rhema Church, however, is small beer compared to Christ Embassy.

We’ll write about this story in our next post.

Trinity

#CharityCommission #charity #interimmanager #rhemachurch #christembassy #interimmanagers #keithmills #trowersandhamlins